[Characterication of reference strains of L. interrogans in China by ISSP-PCR]

The gene polymorphism of the DNAs extracted from reference strains of L. interrogans in China was characterized by LSSP-PCR primered by G1 or G2, which were a pair of specific primers for L. interrogans. The fingerprinting produced by LSSP-PCR showed that serovar lai, serovar canicola, serovar pyrogens, serovar autumnalis, serovar australis, serovar linhai, serovar wolffi and serovar haemolytic have similar patterns, but serovar hebdomadis, serovar javanica, serovar ballum, serovar pomona, serovar spaidjin, serovar tarassov and serovar manahao I have different profiles. This result agreed with the classification of genetic species by Yasuda. The utilization of LSSP-PCR banding patterns in the identification of leptospries in blood samples also gained encouraging results. Compared with the routine methods in genetic species classification, LSSP-PCR has the advantages of rapidity, simplicity and low-cost. It appears to be a promising tool in studying such slowly growing bacteria as leptospires. Further exploration of LSSP-PCR in classification and identification of Leptospires is worthwhile.